Sniper Build

[Dragon]

Someone have any to share with me?

[CheckYourSix]

Easy, pick from the the following booster xen mods:

Chain
Condensed
Strong
Mighty Swing

Those above all significantly boost dps. The first two at the expensive of more ammo cost and chain increases fire cooldown time but the DPS increase is massive.

[kknd]

An example that comes to mind is:

Heavy (The Xen morph that best fits sniper rifle mechanically, high power, long effective range with limited drop off, but low fire rate.)
Then pile on
Mighty Swing (Auto critical on full health targets, which you can build into for the 'one shot one kill' feel of sniping.)
Strong (The basic 'does more damage' mod)
Chain (Massively increased cost to fire, but an additional hit per mod once you do hit a target.)
Another option to Chain is:
Light Strike (Additional burst of damage on a hit, multiple stack in a very powerful way, see the Xen guide for some of that math.)

Slap on the zoom scope and either the Heavy barrel (-50 fire rate for +50 damage, a net DPS neutral change but boosting your single shot damage more.) or a Turbine barrel with the right effects on it. Turbine Barrel charges the gun between shots (when drawn!) for a significant damage increase on the first shot after charge. Given the low RoF your going for, you may well end up with it buffing every shot.

Double tap barrel or Scatter barrels won't fit the goal of 'Long range, one shot, one kill' that tends to define snipers. Regular barrel is fine, but hipfire isn't a common use of sniper rifles.

An alternative I've come to rely on for long range is the Inferno morph. While it's intended as a videogame minigun (Slow opening RoF, but fires faster with each shot fired.) it has high accuracy on initial shots, no damage fall off, basically no bullet drop with distance and for close encounters or bosses you can use it with Free Fire skill to turn a sniper rifle into a minigun (briefly.)

For gear, you have both a forced critical hit and will be aiming for weakpoints already, so it's worth considering the stats for those to get some multiplicative damage going.

I'd suggest pairing it with a xen setup focused on close range large numbers, so Scatter or Elemental Scatter come immediately to mind for me.

[Dragon]

Originally posted by kknd:

An example that comes to mind is:

Another option to Chain is:
Light Strike (Additional burst of damage on a hit, multiple stack in a very powerful way, see the Xen guide for some of that math.)

Light Strike is better than Apex Predator?
And what about Condensed or Multiplier?

[CheckYourSix]

Apex predator doesn't add as much damage as Condensed and is on par with Strong but with a conditional that strong doesn't have. Multiplier is the same as in terms of damage as apex and strong but with a conditional. Better to just take strong. Condensed is far more damage than all of those three but the conditional is more ammo used per shot.

Damage increases in terms of rankings from Booster Xens goes like this:
1) Chain
2) Condensed
3) Everything else

I personally don't like the heavy barrel because while it is alright for a sniper shot build with Heavy Shot, it is terrible for any of the AoE abilities. Most of the AoE abilities already have very long cooldowns and increasing them by 50% is pretty bad. Turbine barrel adds about the same damage without the drawback of increased cooldown. Turbine barrel adds damage after it charges which takes about 3 seconds. If you are already using slow-ish cooldown abilities then Turbine is the way to go.

As far as AoE abilities go there are only a few good ones as well:
1) Chain (red morph xen that shoots a tesla coil)
2) Gale (purple morph xen that shoots a tornado)
3) Electric Field (purple morph xen that shoots a minefield)

Everything else for AoE is meh. Why? They are limited in targets they can hit and don't persist. The 3 AoE abilities I mentioned have a duration they persist and can hit an unlimited number of enemies that are in range during that time. Not to mention they all have very high base damage which makes them superior to anything else right now. Their downsides are long cool downs and large ammo costs. Which isn't as big of a deal when playing a Tiger Squad character like Fae or another Tiger Squad recruit.

There are certainly other good builds that can be done with other Morphs though. I'm not saying that the ones I listed above are the only viable ones. Inferno, Focus, Light, and many others I've tested I've made very viable in terms of DPS output.

However, since the discussion is about a sniper setup, which I typically also run, I gave what I use. Get a good Legendary +5 or Heroic +2 gun with 4 Morph slots. Slot Heavy + any of the 3 AoEs I listed above. Slot the Heavy how I said, and with the AoEs there is more flexibility. You can slot Release or Detonate to increase the AoE size. Slot Trigger Finger to help with Long Cooldowns. Or slot the Material gathering one (since you'll get a lot of materials when doing an AoE attack all at once).

Speaking of gathering materials, if you prefer gathering them by shooting them yourself, then a battering ram setup on a Light, Spray, or Inferno setup will work well. You can eschew getting 3 AoE abilities instead for having the battering ram gathering setup. I personally just use a ranger mech for that as it is close enough for me, but if you really want to break wrecks 1 second faster than a ranger mech can then go for it.

[Dragon]

Originally posted by CheckYourSix:

...

Will test it, thank you :)

And about AoE, I start testing 2 of them;
- Chain - but still looking at it.
- Gravity - which on shooting range I can make it about 4 kk damage.

[CheckYourSix]

Gravity could have been a great AoE ability if it's base damage wasn't so low. It is abysmally low. It does persist and hit a big enough area, but its super long cooldown at the longest base cooldown and lowest damage basically make it more of a fun trick to use than something actually worth using.

[kknd]

Originally posted by CheckYourSix:

Gravity could have been a great AoE ability if it's base damage wasn't so low. It is abysmally low. It does persist and hit a big enough area, but its super long cooldown at the longest base cooldown and lowest damage basically make it more of a fun trick to use than something actually worth using.

That was my experience with it. I went "Wait, that's all the damage it does?" then sighed and tossed it to the wearhouse along with the other disappointing Xen Morphs.

[Winter]

When testing Gravity, try throwing in one of the Entangle morphs to give it damage on each pulse. It's also a good platform for Recovery and/or Disassemble morphs. I've been coming home from Endless runs with several thousand more electro ammo than I started with, though I had to remove the Entangle as it killed the scorpions too quickly to get the full ammo return.

[Dragon]

My Gravity for ~ 4 kk damage;
- 3x Apex Predator II
- Elemental Entagle
- Advanced
- Condensed II

[archelonian]

Energy arc is really good when paired with a sniper build as it gives you a good short-mid range AOE with short cooldown to complement your long range single target potential. When paired with the other AOE xen (with longer cooldown) for longer range others mentioned you are good for every situation.